Frank de Boer Admits Sakho Price Still Too High

Despite what many supporters may think or not, one of the biggest question marks sitting over Melwood is the status of Mamadou Sakho. The defender went to Crystal Palace on loan last year and he did well for the London club and Sam Allardyce had expressed interest towards the end of the season in making the move permanent but Liverpool crazily put a £30m price tag on him, almost effectively killing any interest from any other club, even Crystal Palace. With the departure of Big Sam, though, the question came back with the appointment of Frank de Boer.

The Crystal Palace manager recently expressed his interest in signing the French defender, but still agreed that the price tag is “much too high.”

The Palace manager said: “Everybody knows he had a major impact last season and, when he’s available for us, I think that is a quality injection for the club. It is not like this now because he is much too expensive for the club.”

West Ham has also come out as a possible destination for Saksho, but The Guardian claims that talks are expected to resume between Liverpool and Crystal Palace before the transfer deadline to possibly move Sakho along. Steve Parish, the chairman of Palace, recently admitted that they were looking to add three new players to the squad before the deadline, as well. So far they’ve spent £7.9m on Ajax but openly expressed his disinterest in the high prices this year.

“What’s returned to football are the big-money owners, the win‑at‑all‑costs owners, almost bottomless pockets,” Parish said. “I’d love to see how it all fits with financial fair play, by the way, because I just can’t see how half of this fits with that because the revenue of the clubs hasn’t grown this year.

“I’m not accusing people of anything. I just don’t understand the numbers for some of the clubs that they’re spending, that are being quoted and how you can make that fit over a period with financial fair play.”

What remains to be seen is if they’ll pony up the money for Sakho to make their team better, or if Liverpool will bend and accept less for the defender who hasn’t seen game time since leaving Selhurst Park.